Hedgerow removal notices under the 1997 Regulations

If you farm and you want to take out a length of hedge, the hedgerow regulations removal procedure is a notice, not an application. You serve a hedgerow removal notice on the local planning authority, and the authority has 42 days to respond. If it does nothing in that period, you may remove the hedgerow. If it decides the hedgerow is important under the criteria in the Hedgerows Regulations 1997, it serves a hedgerow retention notice and the hedge stays. There is no fee, and the burden of assessment sits with the council rather than with you.

That structure catches people out in both directions. Some remove hedges believing no rule applies, and some assume a full application is needed and delay a drainage scheme by a season.

What the Regulations actually control

The Hedgerows Regulations 1997 apply to a hedgerow that is 20 metres or more in length, or shorter than 20 metres where it meets another hedgerow at each end, and which grows on or adjacent to land used for agriculture or forestry, for the breeding or keeping of horses, ponies or donkeys, as common land or a village green, or as a site of special scientific interest or local nature reserve.

The word removal is broader than it sounds. It covers destruction as well as grubbing out, so killing a hedge with herbicide or repeatedly working the ground into its base engages the same regime. Cutting, laying and coppicing as part of proper management do not, and that distinction is where most disputes about enforcement start.

Note that the Regulations sit under section 97 of the Environment Act 1995 and are entirely separate from tree protection. A Tree Preservation Order can cover individual trees within a hedge, and hedgerow trees are often protected while the hedge itself is not, or the reverse.

Serving a hedgerow removal notice

The notice itself is short. It identifies the land, includes a plan showing the hedgerow to be removed, states the length in metres, and gives the reason for removal.

1. Map the hedge accurately, with the length and the start and end points identified on a plan the council can match to its own mapping.
2. State the reason plainly. Access, field amalgamation, a drainage scheme and a building are all legitimate reasons to put forward, and the reason does not have to be compelling because the test applied is whether the hedgerow is important, not whether your reason is good.
3. Serve it on the local planning authority for the area, keeping proof of the date of service, because the 42 days runs from receipt.
4. Wait. Do not start clearance on day 40.
5. If a retention notice arrives, you have a right of appeal to the Secretary of State, and the grounds are narrow, so take advice before appealing.

Councils vary in how they use the 42 days. Some send an ecologist or a conservation officer out, some ask for further information, and a request for information does not extend the period, which is why a well mapped notice with a clear plan tends to produce a faster answer.

What makes a hedgerow important

Two limbs have to be satisfied. The hedgerow must have existed for 30 years or more, and it must meet at least one of the criteria in the Regulations covering archaeology and history, or wildlife and landscape.

The historical criteria are the ones landowners underestimate. A hedge that marks a pre-1850 parish or township boundary, forms part of a field system that predates the Inclosure Acts, or contains or is associated with a recorded archaeological feature or a scheduled monument, is important regardless of what grows in it. County Historic Environment Records and old Ordnance Survey editions are where a council looks, and you can look at the same sources before you serve.

The wildlife and landscape criteria turn on species richness and structure. A hedge with seven or more woody species in a 30 metre sample is important, and the species threshold falls as associated features increase, so a hedge with fewer woody species plus a bank, a ditch, a wall, standard trees or a connection to woodland can still qualify. The presence of certain declining or protected species listed in the Regulations also brings a hedge within the criteria. The detail of how each criterion is applied is set out in important hedgerows under the Hedgerows Regulations 1997.

Practical advice: count the species yourself before serving. It takes an hour with a good field guide, and knowing the answer changes whether you serve at all or redesign around the hedge.

Hedges outside the regime

Several hedges are excluded, and the exclusion that matters most is domestic. A hedgerow within the curtilage of a dwelling house, or marking the boundary of that curtilage, is outside the Regulations entirely. Garden hedges are not protected by this regime, though high hedge complaints about evergreen screens are dealt with by councils under separate legislation.

Also outside are hedgerows on land that is none of the listed categories, and new hedges planted within the last 30 years, which fail the age limb whatever their species count.

Two cautions. The curtilage exclusion applies to the dwelling's curtilage as it actually is, not as a title plan suggests, and an old field boundary running through a large garden plot may still be caught. And bird nesting protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 applies to any hedge at any time, so clearance in the main nesting season from March to August carries a separate risk regardless of the hedgerow regulations position.

Where planning permission takes over

Removal is exempt from the notice procedure where it is required to carry out development for which planning permission has been granted, along with other exemptions for national defence, flood defence and drainage works, making a new opening in place of an existing gateway, and preventing the spread of disease.

So on a development site the hedgerow question moves into the planning application. The council will expect the hedgerow to be surveyed and valued as habitat, the loss justified, and replacement or enhancement secured by condition. A Preliminary Ecological Appraisal should record the species composition, structure, connectivity and any associated features, because those are the same attributes the importance criteria use.

Where hedgerow trees are involved, the survey should also cover them to BS 5837:2012, and the Tree Survey and the ecology work should agree on what is being removed. Inconsistent figures between the two are a routine cause of further information requests.

Offences and replacement planting

Removing an important hedgerow in contravention of the Regulations is a criminal offence, prosecuted in the magistrates' court, and the fine is not capped. The authority can also serve a notice requiring you to plant a replacement hedgerow, and a replacement notice is enforceable whether or not you are prosecuted.

The replacement obligation is the part that hurts commercially. A replacement hedge has to be planted on the same line or nearby, established and maintained, and a new hedge takes years to do the job the old one did. Where a hedge has been removed in error, engaging with the council early and offering replacement usually produces a better outcome than waiting to be found.

An illustrative example. A grower serves notice to remove 180 metres of hedge to amalgamate two fields. The council checks the Historic Environment Record, finds the line on the pre-inclosure mapping and serves a retention notice on 140 metres of it, leaving the 40 metre section of later planting removable. The grower creates a wider gateway in the retained length instead, which needs no notice. These details are illustrative.

Hedgerows in the biodiversity metric

Since mandatory biodiversity net gain took effect, hedgerows are accounted for separately in the statutory metric as linear habitat measured in hedgerow units, with their own 10 per cent gain requirement rather than being traded against area habitats. Losing a species rich hedge is therefore expensive in metric terms, because the replacement has to deliver hedgerow units specifically.

That changes the arithmetic on field amalgamation next to a development site. A hedge that costs nothing to remove under the 1997 Regulations may cost a great deal within a development red line. The statutory metric has to be completed by a competent person under the Environment Act 2021 regime, and the biodiversity gain plan is approved by the local planning authority, so a Biodiversity Net Gain Assessment draft is a starting point for that professional rather than a substitute.

Separately, hedgerow management on farmland is subject to the Management of Hedgerows (England) Regulations 2024, which set cutting dates and buffer strip requirements. Check the current position before any autumn cutting programme, because that regime is administered separately from planning.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before removing any hedge.

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